In general, a label to be stuck to an adherend such as an article conventionally includes a label substrate having a printed surface and an adhesive applied to the reverse side of the label substrate. A method for producing such conventional adhesive-applied labels to be stuck to the adherend is described in reference to FIG. 5. For producing the labels, an adhesive label base sheet 56 composed of two members, or a paper liner (back substrate) 50 having a release agent applied to the surface and a label substrate 54 having an adhesive 52 applied to the reverse side, is used. In the adhesive label base sheet 56, the label substrate 54 is temporarily adhered through the adhesive 52 to the release agent-applied surface of the paper liner 50, and the label substrate 54 that is one member in the adhesive label base sheet 56 with the temporarily adhered two members is subjected to printing and punching (half-punching of only the label substrate 54 with the adhesive 52).
When only the label substrate 54 with the adhesive 52 is half-punched from the adhesive label base sheet 56, for example, a rotary cutting machine 58 provided with cutting teeth 57 is disposed on the label substrate 54 side of the adhesive label base sheet 56, and a cylindrical seat (anvil roll) 60 is disposed on the paper liner 50 side of the adhesive label base sheet 56. The adhesive label base sheet 56 is held between the rotary cutting machine 58 and the cylindrical seat 60, and the adhesive label base sheet 56 is moved while rotating the rotary cutting machine 58 and the cylindrical seat 60. The label substrate 54 with the adhesive 52 is punched by the cutting teeth 67 of the rotary cutting machine 58, and single labels 62 are successively formed from the label substrate 54 with the adhesive 52. After a number of single labels 62 are punched out from the label substrate 54 with the adhesive 52, the residual part after punching out the single labels 62 in the label substrate 54 is peeled from the paper liner 50 as a waste member 66 having holes 64 formed therein.
Conventionally, a number of single labels 62 are sequentially stuck (pseudo-adhered) onto the paper liner 50 at intervals through the adhesive 52. The paper liner 50 on which a number of single labels 62 are sequentially pseudo-adhered at intervals is wound around a core tube (not shown) and taken up in a roll shape (Patent Document 1). As the method of sequentially sticking a number of single labels 62 produced in FIG. 5 on the paper liner 50 at intervals, each manufacturer adopts its own unique method.
In Patent Document 1, since a number of labels are stuck on the paper liner one by one at intervals, the paper liner must be moved by the total length of the length of one label and the space between labels after one label is taken from the paper liner. Namely, the paper liner must be moved in a long distance every time one label is peeled. Therefore, in trying to stick a large amount of labels per unit time by use of the paper liner, the paper liner must be moved at high speed, and the high-speed movement of the paper liner requires a complicated and enlarged apparatus, resulting in an increased cost. Further, since the paper liner from which the labels are peeled must be wound up, the whole apparatus is inevitably increased in size due to the necessity of a space for winding up the paper liner. When the diameter of the wound paper liner becomes a fixed size or more, an operation for removing the wound paper liner by stopping the apparatus once is absolutely needed, and a continuous operation cannot be performed. Moreover, since the release agent layer is provided on one side of the paper liner, incineration cost of industrial waste for disposal of the paper liner or recycling cost for regeneration treatment thereof is also needed. Additionally, the incineration of the paper liner generates carbon dioxide.
If the use of the paper liner for sticking the labels is avoided, not only a reduction in cost by omission of the paper liner but also the continuous operation of the apparatus can be attained, and the generation of carbon dioxide by the incineration of the paper liner can be also eliminated. Further, the disadvantage of the necessity of the incineration cost as industrial waste in the disposal of the paper liner with the release agent applied to one side can be also eliminated. When the regeneration treatment is performed, the recycling cost for the regeneration treatment is needed, and this recycling cost can be higher than the incineration cost in some cases. Therefore, linerless labels using no paper liner (in which single labels are partially adhered to each other in sequence) are conventionally provided (Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3).
FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a linerless label using no paper liner as described in Patent Document 2 or Patent Document 3, wherein a label strip-shaped body (linerless label strip-shaped body) 68 is formed by sequentially overlapping a number of single labels 62 formed in FIG. 5 with slight shift, and the label strip-shaped body 68 is wound around a core 70. In the label strip-shaped body 68 formed by sequentially overlapping and connecting the single labels 62, the single labels 62 are peeled therefrom one by one and stuck onto an adherend.